Heavily congested cities have a variety of traffic problems. During heavy traffic, pinch points may create a traffic jam. A traffic jam causes a vehicle to maintain a drive state while being stopped for a prolonged period of time. This increases fuel consumption and reduces overall fuel economy. Control systems for vehicles used to improve fuel economy and decrease fuel consumption typically involve stopping and starting a vehicle engine.
These systems cause the engine to shut down completely when the control system determines that no direct engine input is required. When the control system determines that torque is required to drive the vehicle, the control system will send a restart command to the engine. Once the engine restart command is received, the engine will restart and provide the necessary input torque to drive the vehicle. However, these control systems operate under a specified set of circumstances and are costly to install on vehicles.